Red Mosquito

I guess my analogy refers more to the behavior of the adherents to birtherism vs. Russiagate rather than the details/reasoning behind each one.

verb_to_trust wrote:Fuck Donald Trump though

Goes without saying.

There are plenty of reasons to abhor DJT. Colluding with Russians, however, is no longer a viable or rational reason.

meatwad wrote:

verb_to_trust wrote:Fuck Donald Trump though

Goes without saying.

There are plenty of reasons to abhor DJT. Colluding with Russians, however, is no longer a viable or rational reason.

Think a huge point is being Missed. Everywhere.
Forgot collusion. Russia absolutely without question interfered with that election. On a vast scale. And the US govt had done absolutely nothing to prevent it happeneing again. The media particularly were played like a fiddle. Both sides.
That should be the issue screamed about front and Center until it’s addressed and measures taken to prevent it ever happening again.

meatwad wrote:

verb_to_trust wrote:Fuck Donald Trump though

Goes without saying.

There are plenty of reasons to abhor DJT. Colluding with Russians, however, is no longer a viable or rational reason.

I'm not particularly surprised by that conclusion in the report; I've been very unclear about even if there was some unsavory stuff going on in the Trump campaign in regards to the issue, whether any of it was indictable. But it'll be interesting to read the report, and if Trump tries to block its release, hopefully it'll be leaked. The obstruction result of the report is more surprising, could be far more damaging long term, and may be a misstep on the part of the Special Counsel. It's definitely the part of the report I'd be more interested in reading.

There’s a point to that mindset. It’s possibly now even more troubling to wonder why Trump bows at the alter to Saint Putin. Is it because he is putting his business interests first and wants a hotel in Moscow when this whole being president thing is done 2 or 6 years from now? Is it because he genuinely regards being an autocrat as something to strive toward? Is he so narcissistic that anyone who compliments him is virtuous no matter their other characteristics?

One other thing I want to know is why. Why, if this investigation would exhonerate him, would he lie publicly, order others to lie for him, dictate a knowingly false press statement, slam any investigation and its appointed leader unendingly on social media? What’s the point of you did nothing wrong in the end? Why send Giuliani to run around saying massively confusing and ludicrous things on a regular basis? Why fire the FBI investigation over this “Russia thing”? Why chastise your attorney general for staying out it when there’s nothing there? Why try to fire the Special Counsel? If he had stayed quiet and let the investigation take its course under Comey, it seems like in all probability there would have been far less coverage of all of this and Comey or Rosenstein would have just said they’d looked into it and Russia interfered through social media and the hacking but that no candidate or campaign collided or orchestrated that interference.

digster wrote: Compared to that, even if you grant Trump the most lenient possible reading of the report's conclusions, it's just extremely difficult for me to see how this reaches that type of impact. I don't think it's going to impact how foreign allies and adversaries interact with us; it hasn't seemed to thus far. And the impact it does have (it's causing us to be more polarized and distrust each other and our institutions) were already there prior to the Mueller report; they were already there prior to Trump. I don't think the fact that half the country hates the other half and vice versa was going to go away regardless of what the report said.

Maybe? Or maybe the whole collusion investigation just made hating the other side 'cool'. Like a bandwagon thing. And it's not the report but the behavior of the media over the last few years WRT Trump and Russia. Honestly, did you remember mainstream late night television hosts saying anything like "suck Putin's ****" when Obama was President? I realize how old I must seem, but it's just different now and I can't help but think the whole Russian collusion issue gave the haters the excuse they needed.

Basically, Trump proves once again that you can be a liar, a cheat, a despicable excuse for a human being and still end up on top. The old adage “cheaters never prosper” is wrong. The worse he is the better things go for him. Maybe everything we’ve believed about ethics and morals are actually wrong. I guess we all just need to be asshole human beings and everything will be alright.

Donald Trump is just a combination of our increasing deference to the presidency, which was nurtured by both parties, mixed with the political malpractice that results from a design where half of the population is represented by 1/5 of the senate.

Bi_3 wrote:

digster wrote: Compared to that, even if you grant Trump the most lenient possible reading of the report's conclusions, it's just extremely difficult for me to see how this reaches that type of impact. I don't think it's going to impact how foreign allies and adversaries interact with us; it hasn't seemed to thus far. And the impact it does have (it's causing us to be more polarized and distrust each other and our institutions) were already there prior to the Mueller report; they were already there prior to Trump. I don't think the fact that half the country hates the other half and vice versa was going to go away regardless of what the report said.

Maybe? Or maybe the whole collusion investigation just made hating the other side 'cool'. Like a bandwagon thing. And it's not the report but the behavior of the media over the last few years WRT Trump and Russia. Honestly, did you remember mainstream late night television hosts saying anything like "suck Putin's ****" when Obama was President? I realize how old I must seem, but it's just different now and I can't help but think the whole Russian collusion issue gave the haters the excuse they needed.

I just don't know about that, personally; none of this venom we're seeing every single day in the country suddenly manifested itself with the collusion investigation; it predates Donald Trump altogether. Things were pretty awful throughout Obama's presidency, and certainly it was rough to watch during the 2016 election, before the special counsel was even a possible consideration.

Has it gotten worse in the past few years? Certainly, but it's been getting worse as long as I can remember. If things have coarsened in our country, and that's seemed to accelerate in the past several years, the most obvious reason to me would seem to be that we're all taking our cues from the top. Things are undoubtedly going to get worse when the President is basically human lighter fluid for stoking resentment, grievance and anger from everyone, supporters and detractors alike. That's how he got elected; it doesn't surprise me that things have continued to deteriorate.

This is actually a fairly good distillation of the most worrying long-term ramifications of this, in regards to Mueller's punting of the obstruction question to the Attorney General; https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/26/us/p ... rgate.html

In particular, the kicker at the end was fairly striking;

But the end result may be the same in terms of setting a new standard for future presidents. The hands-off attitude when it came to investigations of the past no longer applies.

“The extremes we have gone to accommodate the president’s authority are a terrible precedent for going forward as a democracy built on separation of power and balance of powers,” said Richard Ben-Veniste, a former Watergate prosecutor.

Mr. Rivkin, however, argued that the potential downside of a president interfering in law enforcement actions out of political motives was outweighed by the danger of such powerful agencies operating without anyone overseeing them.

“Do you want to have the F.B.I., C.I.A. and N.S.A. accountable to nobody but themselves?” he asked, citing “serious abuses of civil liberties” that have occurred in American history. “Choose your poison. When someone talks about the possibility of corruption, my response is what’s the alternative? Do you have a better alternative?”

The notion that any civil liberties advocate would say the solution to unchecked national security agencies (which is a real threat) is to settle for a chief executive with absolute power is a pretty odd stance to take (and one that a lot of leftists who have been skeptical of Russiagate haven't really tried to grapple with thus far).

Bi_3 wrote: Maybe? Or maybe the whole collusion investigation just made hating the other side 'cool'. Like a bandwagon thing. And it's not the report but the behavior of the media over the last few years WRT Trump and Russia. Honestly, did you remember mainstream late night television hosts saying anything like "suck Putin's ****" when Obama was President? I realize how old I must seem, but it's just different now and I can't help but think the whole Russian collusion issue gave the haters the excuse they needed.

Or maybe there is actually something to it, since the President is clearly bending over backwards for Russia, even after they attacked our election process to help him win?

Stop being a crybaby. The truth hurts sometimes. It will probably take a couple of years, but Trump will always be known as the President who deliberately divided the country, took health insurance away from 20 million people and sold us out to Russia. Nothing good will ever come of it. Once people realize they got screwed, there will be a smattering of xenophobic Trumptards left, complaining that we are being invaded by illegals, and that will be the end of it.

Honestly, did you remember mainstream late night television hosts saying anything like "suck Putin's ****" when Obama was President?

Do you remember how Donald Trump’s political rise was fashioned on insisting that the president was secretly not a US citizen, and may even be a terrorist, because he had a weird name and was black? Do you remember Fox News and even Republican politicians humoring those claims?

Admittedly, no swears were used.

Not to forget their utter meltdown that time Obama simply wore a tan coloured suit.

dimejinky99 wrote:Not to forget their utter meltdown that time Obama simply wore a tan coloured suit.

That tan suit is right up there with targeted assassinations and drone killings as the worst actions of his presidency.

4/5 wrote:

dimejinky99 wrote:Not to forget their utter meltdown that time Obama simply wore a tan coloured suit.

That tan suit is right up there with targeted assassinations and drone killings as the worst actions of his presidency.

Sláinte

Green Habit wrote:

Poor girl.

The fact that things move so fast often seems to help Trump, as we just skate past things any other president would be obliterated over. But sometimes that works against him, too; it's been a few days and the release of the Mueller report already seems like it was ages ago. It's just really hard to imagine that being a central campaign issue for independents more than a year and a half from now.

It’ll be interesting to see how much evidence for obstruction there was. It could be Mueller’s last chess move to sacrifice himself in order to get the trumpsters all giddy and not paying attention only to have another piece in waiting to win the game.

random thoughts I've seen:

My husband and I can’t figure it out, either, and I thought the last suggestion: diversion.

BUT IT’S SUCH A STUPID ONE!!!

GOP voters want “Repeal and Replace.”

Not “Repeal and good luck you poor stupid assholes.”

And the SCOTUS already upheld the ACA. TWICE. The same four liberal justices plus Roberts are there.

https://www-m.cnn.com/2015/06/25/politi ... gle.com%2F

The Democrats won back the House AT A MINIMUM TO KEEP THE ACA AND AT A MAXIMUM FOR UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE.

I think Trump is gonna drop a bomb and say he’s not running in 2020. Because clearly this is a guy who wants to fail at 2020.

James Comey says he’s confused by Mueller’s decision re obstruction:

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna987771

The Mueller grand jury is still active.

The piece doesn't go into any details or make any assumptions about what they're working on, but this is still important to note. I do wonder if we're seeing the reverse of the 2018-midterms. The first 24 hours, it seemed like it was a good night for Dems but not as good as it could have been, and then 2-3 weeks later, it turned it out it was a great night for Dems as more results came in and showed more gains. I'm wondering if Trumpians started celebrating too soon.